For the design of digital circuits (e.g., on the scale of Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) technology), designers often employ computer-aided techniques. Standard languages such as Hardware Description Languages (HDLs) have been developed to describe digital circuits to aid in the design and simulation of complex digital circuits. Several hardware description languages, such as VHDL and Verilog, have evolved as industry standards. VHDL and Verilog are general-purpose hardware description languages that allow definition of a hardware model at the gate level, the register transfer level (RTL) or the behavioral level using abstract data types. As device technology continues to advance, various product design tools have been developed to adapt HDLs for use with newer devices and design styles. Other languages such as variations of C and C++ can also be used as hardware description languages.
In designing an integrated circuit with an HDL code, the code is first written and then compiled by an HDL compiler. The HDL source code describes at some level the circuit elements, and the compiler produces an RTL netlist from this compilation. The RTL netlist is typically a technology independent netlist in that it is independent of the technology/architecture of a specific vendor's integrated circuit, such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) or an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). The RTL netlist corresponds to a schematic representation of circuit elements (as opposed to a behavioral representation). For the purpose of this description there are other equivalent data structures. One example is a control data flow graph (CDFG). A mapping operation is then performed to convert from the technology independent RTL netlist to a technology specific netlist, which can be used to create circuits in the vendor's technology/architecture. It is well known that FPGA vendors utilize different technology/architecture to implement logic circuits within their integrated circuits. Thus, the technology independent RTL netlist is mapped to create a netlist, which is specific to a particular vendor's technology/architecture.
In designing a circuit, transformations are frequently performed to optimize certain design goals. For example, transformations may be performed to reduce the area used by a circuit or to increase the speed of the circuit.